Droplets on a Feather
by Breezewhiskers
Summary: Jayfeather reflects on his blindness and how it has affected his life.


Droplets on a feather

Blindness is a strange thing to be sure. You are cut off from seeing the beauty the world around you is so eager to shove in everyone else's face. When his clanmates were unaware of his presence they would converse about how the trees were taller than last summer, one of them would even remark upon how the bark was a fascinating glossy black after the rain had caressed the whole forest with its touch. Then one would talk admiringly of a she-cat. How the pelt of this particular cat rippled like tired waves washing up on shore, then they would notice their blind companion sitting next to them and they would simply kill the thought of discussing anything visual.

The terms "visual" or "look" are meaningless to him, meaningless like dust particles carried on the wind on an orange, warm summer afternoon, we do not notice because we have better things to fill our minds with.

Jayfeather doesn't mind however. He was born without an image in his eyes, he doesn't know what his mother looks like, what his home looks like or what the sun is, when he asked his mother she described it to him as "The most brilliantly bright, yellow sphere nestled high in the sky and if you look into it directly, your eyes become like it".

To him it sounded like the most wonderful thing, being able to look up any time of the day and be greeted by such a sight. Jayfeather's early years had been filled with as much care and happiness a clan cat could have asked for, but had never known what it felt like to have something taken from him until the day he had been told about the sun. That this marvel of nature should fall on his dead eyes and never know what _light _was. He tried directing his eyes to the sun, that perhaps his eyes would become like the story his mother had told him. For several days he went and stood in the clearing of the camp he lived in. His paws burned on the rock that the sun had warmed, until his mother had come up to him and joined him. She said that even though he may never see the world, he would feel it better than how he felt the burning in his paws at the moment.

_Drip_

He did. He felt something in his eyes, reaching with his paw to feel it he noticed that it was wet, perhaps he was bleeding from looking at the sun. But this did not have the scent of blood, it did not have any scent in fact. He wondered how water had begun to stream from his eyes, like the stories the elders told of the mighty stream that flowed through the old forest. As his mother blocked the flow of water with her tail she told him that the eyes of someone you love are more beautiful than the sun she had spoken of, and that Jayfeather's were the purest that anyone was ever going to see, untouched by the skeletal sight of naked trees in the harsh, dead winter, of parents that slowly wither in front of your eyes until they are nothing more than a ghost of their previous glory. Friends, whom are taken by disease and fall into the murky recesses of memory for most clanmates save for your own. Jayfeather would have the advantage of remembering his clanmates by their actions.

In an ironical sense of mixed anguish and bliss, he realized his eyes were at long last good for one sole thing. Expressing sadness. How… potent.

Despite all this, Jayfeather is content with life at the moment. In his younger days he was angry at the world, unable to become a warrior for his clan as is the dream for any "normal" cat in the clan. Oh he tried as hard as he could, but soon enough he was rooted in the medicine den like the herbs he used were firmly rooted in the musty rich soil of summer.

Because of his position, he is content. He saves lives and cures illnesses. Yet with all his expertise there so many small things he cannot do anything about, not without sight. There are so many things his clanmates could do with wings as well he thought in a sarcastic voice accompanied with a snort. The dripping sound from the rain that is seeping into his den is driving him mad, the dripping echoes throughout his den, his sharp ears cannot combat the voice of the stone bouncing the message of the rain forward. He leaves his den for the night, rather spending the night in the clearing rather than with the dripping.

It is silent for the first time this day. Granted, he hears the occasional rumbling sound coming from the dens around him, but otherwise it is sweetly silent. He is consumed by the lack of sound, it feels like he is nested deeply in the most comfortable den imaginable before a rogue thought slips into the private forest of his mind.

He wondered for a handful of moments if the moon was like the sun, a childlike temptation wanted him to direct his eyes to the mysterious orb in the sky, perhaps if the sun did not work, the moon would? He quickly dismissed the thought however. He preferred not to be crushed by the demeaning stare of reality a second time.

_Drip_

He felt something wet underneath his eye, however this time it carried the scent of old water. The rain was returning, dragging his paws back to his den he laid his body down and let the dripping fill his ears. After a while, it was silent once more, it was still dripping rigorously however. He could care less, he has medicines to sort and wounds to close. With that, he rises and treads out into the wilderness, his clanmates are still resting but Jayfeather has never cared much of details. The slight rain pricks and pierces his pelt. Jayfeather does not care, in fact he feels slightly exuberant with hidden energy after a newfound revelation filled his mind.

He cannot feel the dripping anymore.


End file.
